title: Using a stick does not necessarily alter judged distances or reachability.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  It has been reported that participants judge an object to be closer after a stick has been used to touch it than after touching it with the hand. In this study we try to find out why this is so.
  
  
  METHODS
  We showed six participants a cylindrical object on a table. On separate trials (randomly intermixed) participants either estimated verbally how far the object is from their body or they touched a remembered location. Touching was done either with the hand or with a stick (in separate blocks). In three different sessions, participants touched either the object location or the location halfway to the object location. Verbal judgments were given either in centimeters or in terms of whether the object would be reachable with the hand. No differences in verbal distance judgments or touching responses were found between the blocks in which the stick or the hand was used.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Instead of finding out why the judged distance changes when using a tool, we found that using a stick does not necessarily alter judged distances or judgments about the reachability of objects.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute MOVE, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Denise-de.Grave@unilever.com
authors.forename: Denise D J
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: de Grave
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brenner
authors.forename: Jeroen B J
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Smeets
mesh_terms: D004215:Distance Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D004864:Equipment and Supplies; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D015895:Relative Value Scales; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014110:Touch / Q000502:physiology*; D014894:Weights and Measures / Q000295:instrumentation*